When it comes to taunting us with the prospect of a fully-functioning hoverboard, ambitious designers, startups and pranksters alike have really stepped up their game recently. But this effort from Lexus officially takes the cake. The automaker has released a short film of professional skateboarder Ross McGouran riding its magnetic levitation Hoverboard around a purpose-built skatepark, which, as you'd expect, makes for some pretty awesome viewing.
Lexus has teased the public with its hoverboard project for some time now, remaining tightlipped on the details of how this thing actually works. What we do know is that the company built a special skatepark that looks like a regular skatepark, but hides (656 ft) 200 m of magnetic track under its surface.
The thinking was that this would allow the board to levitate just above the ground, but if previous efforts to recreate Marty McFly's ride in Back to the Future II have taught us anything, it's that such ambitions should be treated with a healthy dose of skepticism.
Lexus says its hoverboard contains two cryostats that hold superconducting material immersed in liquid nitrogen to keep it at a chilly -197° C (-322.6° F), giving it the ability to float over the magnetic surface. And in sliding down handrails, riding across water and jumping a moving Lexus, McGouran offers an achingly cool debut for the futuristic device.
It should be noted that the project is part of a Lexus advertising campaign and the company has no intention of releasing its hoverboard, even if you do go to the trouble of building a metallic skatepark to ride it in.
Source: Lexus
And the trough in the middle of the underside is for riding down handrails? Hah!
But it does smoke and look very cool even though it's a prohibitively expensive stunt to pull off. What does a magnetic field this strong do to electronic devices, if anything?
No new technology here, and certainly no exotic use of hypothetical materials either. The hover is due to the well know meissner effect of superconductors. The "smoke" coming out of the board is nothing but liquid nitrogen evaporating. The blocks underneath the board contain the reservoir for LN2 and off the shelf high-temperature superconductors. The skate park is purpose built with tracks of magnets embedded within, and yes even in the very shallow pool.
Keen observers should note that board is constrained to a predefined path of the magnets regardless of the rider's input. Traditional skateboards will turn in the direction of lean based on the skater's input. That is why all the skaters fell off side ways in the beginning. Sure eventually they were able adapt and just ride the hover board sort of like a stand-up roller coaster where the rider is at the mercy of the track. In the car-jumping sequence, the skater lands just a bit askew from the invisible track's line. As soon as he broke free of the track, the board immediately stopped hovering and he crashed.
One could suggest that magnets be embedded everywhere in the park. Doing so would render the hover board nothing more than a very expensive superconductor equivalent of an air-hockey puck. The superconductor will only hover and traverse within the field of magnets. If the magnets are lined up as a track the superconductor will hover over and traverse the track longitudally. If entire surface is lined with magnets the superconductor will still hover, but will now traverse in any direction. Imagine trying to skate on a carpet dolly. You cannot control direction or orientation...useful to move objects around but useless as a hover board.
Granted there is merit in this fairly impractical and expensive project. It does look fun indeed. I would really categorize this not as a technological breakthrough, but an excellent amusement attraction befitting the circus or Burning Man.